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a third to a half more than the breadth, the height somewhat greater than the breadth, and having a roof bevelled off all round the sides. This species of ceiling, called, technically, a coved or coach roof, from its being lower at the sides than centre, is in all cases best suited for conveying sounds clearly to the ears of auditors."

The principles of acoustics are well understood, but they are too seldom applied to the construction of speaking rooms. In many instances costly assembly halls and churches are very defective in regard to public speaking. The fancy of the architect seems rather to be consulted in their construction, than scientific principles. "The subject urgently demands consideration in connection with architecture."*

Reflecting surfaces may be so related to one another as to cause multiple echoes. At Srevley-Fels, on the Rhine, is a position in which a sound is repeated by echo, seventeen times. At the Villa Sinsonetta, near Milan, is another where it is repeated thirty times.t In Woodstock Park there is an echo which repeats seventeen syllables by day and twentyeight by night. Sir John Herschel mentions an echo in the Manfroni palace at Venice, where a person standing in the centre of a square room, about twenty-five feet high, with a concave roof, hears the stamp of his feet repeated a great many times, but as his position deviates from the centre the echoes become feebler and at a short distance they entirely

cease.

If a sound be made in one focus of an ellipsoidal surface, it will be reflected to the other focus. Whispering galleries are constructed upon this principle. The ear of Dionysius is celebrated in ancient history. It was a grotto cut out of the solid rock at Syracuse, in which a person placed at one point could hear every word, however faintly uttered, in the grotto.

Lastly, we may refer to the moral effect of sounds, especially very loud sounds. The red man hears the voice of the Great Spirit speaking from out the cloud when it thunders;

*Chamber's Encyclopædia, vol. i, p. 32. ↑ Bartlett's Acoustics, p. 89.

Brewster's Natural Magic, p. 205.

and a similar feeling, mingled with some fear, has a tendency to prevent man from wrong doing when the thunder roars, or when he hears such subterraneous sounds as accompany earthquakes.

ART. V.-1. Report: Orange Lodges, Associations or Societies in Ireland. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, July, 1835.

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2. Report: Orange Institutions in Great Britain and the Colonies. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, September, 1835.

3. Reports from the Select Committees appointed to inquire into the nature, character, extent, and tendency of Orange Lodges, Associations, or Societies in Ireland, with the Minutes of evidence, Appendix and Index. Ordered by the House of Commons to

be printed, 1835.

4. Mr. Hume's Speech in the House of Commons, Feb. 23, 1836. 5. Battle of Magheramayo. Newry: James Henderson, 1849. 6. Mr. Berwick's Report to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on the occurrences which took place in the District of Castlewellen, on the occasion of an Orange Procession, on the 12th of July, 1849. Dublin Evening Post, 17th October, 1849.

A LARGE proportion of those who inflict the most serious injuries on their neighbors do so under the impression that they are doing right; hundreds are guilty of conduct as members of a faction or society from which they would shrink with horror as individuals. The moralist as well as the philosopher should take this into account in estimating the amount of violence or depravity manifested in any particular community. Even those who are injured are bound to take into consideration the motives of their assailants. It is true that if one's leg or arm is broken, for his house burned, his pain or loss is not diminished by learning that his assailant was prompted by erroneous motives. Nevertheless no

one who reflects entertains the same feeling towards those who injure him through ignorance, under the impression that they are serving a good cause, which he does towards those who are actuated by personal malice or avarice. In this point of view ignorance is little better than insanity; the wisest of the ancients made but little distinction between the two conditions of the mind; and what great difference can be made at the present day between an ignorant man who is highly excited-especially if excited by fanaticism, a partisan spirit, and, perhaps, intoxicating drink-and a maniac? The principal difference is that while the law holds the former responsible for his conduct, it expressly exempts the latter from punishment.

In making this comparison in allusion to the conduct of the Orangemen of Ireland we do not mean to make any attack on that body. We have no grudge to gratify against them; they have never disobliged us personally in any manner; on the contrary we cheerfully acknowledge that we have experienced much friendship from individual Orangemen, while we made no effort to conceal our dislike of a society which had contributed so much to the ruin of Ireland. Often we have reasoned with Orangemen in a public journal published in one of their own strongholds, endeavoring to induce them to reflect on their conduct and make themselves acquainted, at least in part, with the history of those in whose name, or in commemoration of whom they Nor do we mean to committed such deplorable excesses. pursue any more unfriendly course in this article; at the same time we shall not shrink from presenting the facts to our readers.

Our object in taking up the subject at the present day is two fold: the American people have but little idea of the real character of the Orange Society; and this little is by no means correct. It is but natural that Protestants should think that when other Protestants have had conflicts with Catholics as such, the latter, and not the former, must be the party to blame; but in this instance at least the reverse is the case. That the lower order of the

Catholics of Ireland often commit excesses, far be it from us

to deny; there is no reason why we should do so. But in their struggles with the Orangemen they have, in ninetynine cases out of a hundred, acted purely on the defensive, although it would undoubtedly have been different had they not been restrained by their clergy.

When we speak, however, of the ignorance of Orangemen we would not be understood to represent all as igno-" rant; only the rank and file. Men of the highest intelligence have belonged, and we regret still belong, to the Society-members of all the learned professions, including many ministers of the established church.* It is this class who are chiefly to blame, because they know how absurd and vicious, as well as unpatriotic, the system is, and only ally themselves to it as a means of securing political influence, although not a few of them have emulated the most ignorant in their outrageous attacks on the Catholics. It is true that for some years past the higher class have, in general, kept aloof, at least from the public demonstrations of the Society; but it is only because they see that there is not much to be gained by the Orange prestige as long as the brethren are precluded by law, as they are at present, from marching in procession to insult and outrage their Catholic fellow countrymen and fellow subjects.

One part of our object is to show the American people what Orangeism really is, and we shall fully prove the facts we state, by Protestant testimony. The other principal part of our object is to dissuade Irish Protestants in the United States and British America from becoming members of a society which for nearly two centuries has proved the worst enemy of their native country. We wish to impress upon this class that, however absurd the Orange system is in

It is nevertheless true that the Society could never boast of a single individual who had distinguished himself in literature, science, the arts, statesmanship, or eloquence. All who have so distinguished themselves, including Episcopalians and Presbyterians, have abhorred Orangeism as a curse to Ireland, and a disgaace to Protestantism. Nay more, there has not been one of the Protestants of Ireland who have rendered themselves illustrious by their genius, that had not as kind and friendly feelings towards the Catholics as he had towards the Protestants. This is true alike of Burke, Sheridan, Plunkett, Goldsmith, and Grattan. Even the Protestant Dean of St. Patrick's, far from hating his Catholic countrymen, vindicated their cause at the risk of his life; and heretic as he was, indulging in his joke about Popery as well as Presbyterianism, the Catholics loved him so enthusiastically that they frequently insisted on carrying him on their shoulders through the streets of Dublin.

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Ireland, it becomes ten times more absurd when sought to be transplanted in America; and its influence can scarcely be less pernicious in the New World than it has been in the Old. This will be the more readily admitted if it be borne in mind that the most bloody and disgraceful riots which have taken place on our railroads in different parts of the country have been excited by the dæmon of Orangeism-between 'Fardowners" and "Corkonians;" the former representing the Orangemen of the North, the latter the Catholics of the South. But Orangeism has not merely caused these internecine feuds in the United States; it has also caused the burning of Catholic churches, from time to time, in different parts of the country. In short, at no time during the last twenty years has the Orange spirit found vent in Ireland, but its baneful influence has been felt to a greater or less extent in this country.

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Now, before we place before our readers some of the doings of the Orangemen in Ireland, let us pause for a moment to see what was the origin of the system. Every student of English history is aware that next to Cromwell, William III., called the Prince of Orange, was, of all the more recent rulers of England the most ruthless oppressor of Ireland. This sovereign maintained a large fleet on the coast of Ireland for the purpose of seizing as pirates all vessels attempting to trade with that country. Irishmen charged with political offences in his time had no mercy to hope for; even Cromwell did not give so much work to the hangman in Ireland, or so little trouble to judge or jury. The moment any Catholic charged with a serious offence by a "loyalist" was arrested he might calculate that his doom was sealed. His trial was a mere matter of form; the gallows was already prepared for him!

Nor was it alone the Irish Catholics whom the Prince of Orange treated in this summary manner. His treatment of the Scottish Highlanders was still more ferocious and cruel. In proof of this it is almost sufficient to mention the massacre of Glencoe. Even Macaulay who has sought to make a hero of William could not deny that he deliberately signed the death-warrant of a whole tribe. In the annals of Pagan bar

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